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Nuclear power is once again considered a prominent alternative, despite the disregard it was met with in the 1970s. This is because it’s now being touted as a more environmentally beneficial solution since it emits far fewer greenhouse gases during electricity generation than coal or other traditional power plants.

It is widely accepted as a somewhat dangerous, potentially problematic, but manageable source of generating electricity. Radiation isn’t easily dealt with, especially in nuclear waste and maintenance materials, and expensive solutions are needed to contain, control, and shield both people and the environment from its harm.

The dialogue about using nuclear power – and expanding it – centers on weighing these risks against the rewards, as well as the risks inherent in other forms of power generation. These are just some of the issues involved.

PROS

Lower carbon dioxide (and other greenhouse gases) released into the atmosphere in power generation.

Low operating costs (relatively).

Known, developed technology “ready” for market.

Large power-generating capacity able to meet industrial and city needs (as opposed to low-power technologies like solar that might meet only local, residential, or office needs but cannot generate power for heavy manufacturing).

Existing and future nuclear waste can be reduced through waste recycling and reprocessing, similar to Japan and the EU (at added cost).

CONS

High construction costs due to complex radiation containment systems and procedures.

High subsidies needed for construction and operation, as well as loan guarantees.

Subsidies and investment could be spent on other solutions (such as renewable energy systems).

High-known risks in an accident.

Unknown risks.

Long construction time.

Target for terrorism (as are all centralized power generation sources).

Waivers are required to limit liability of companies in the event of an accident. (This means that either no one will be responsible for physical, environmental, or health damages in the case of an accident or leakage over time from waste storage, or that the government will ultimately have to cover the cost of any damages.)

Nuclear is a centralized power source requiring large infrastructure, investment, and coordination where decentralized sources (including solar and wind) can be more efficient, less costly, and more resilient.

Uranium sources are just as finite as other fuel sources, such as coal, natural gas, etc., and are expensive to mine, refine, and transport, and produce considerable environmental waste (including greenhouse gasses) during all of these processes.

The majority of known uranium around the world lies under land controlled by tribes or indigenous peoples who don’t support it being mined from the earth.

The legacy of environmental contamination and health costs for miners and mines has been catastrophic.

Waste lasts 200 – 500 thousand years.

There are no operating long-term waste storage sites in the U.S. One is in development, but its capacity is already oversubscribed. Yucca Mountain is in danger of contaminating ground water to a large water basin, affecting millions of people. It’s difficult, if not impossible, for the U.S. to impose its will on the state of Nevada (or other places) if they don’t want to host long-term storage of waste.

There are no operating “next generation” reactors, such as high-temperature breeder reactors and particle-beam activated reactors, that are reported to produce less waste and have reduced safety concerns. Even if these technologies were ready, they wouldn’t be deployable commercially for another two decades.

Shipping nuclear waste internationally poses an increased potential threat to interception to terrorism (though this has not happened yet with any of the waste shipped by other countries). Increasing the amount of waste shipped, particularly in less secure countries, is seen as a significant increase in risk to nuclear terrorism.

The IPCC just called off the climate catastrophe. So we can burn oil, gas and coal as much as we want to. Even from fracking. The point is though that burning fossil fuels also pollutes the air which kills people. That is why nuclear power has already saved about 2 mio lives. Also you are right about the dose, anything below 100 mSv per year is harmless, that is why the radiation in Fukushima, where doses are 0.001 mSv, is to small to even cause one case of cancer.

Dude, are you saying Adam and Eve are real? Who created God, btw? Oh, yeah, he created himself. Because he was already created when he created himself. Makes lots of sense. Jesus, why did you do that??? = Jeezez, why did you do that??? => Jesus is not real

Since Adam was made out of mud and Eve was made out of a rib, that means boys are made out of mud and girls are made out of ribs! Adam and Eve are the first humans, that means that all of us are descendants of Adam and Eve!

YOU ARE A FREAKING IDIOT!!! Of course CO2 emissions hurt the environment. Its called a green house gas because it traps some of the heat from the sun causing the temperature to rise. The rise in temperature causes the ice caps to melt and extreme highs. the melting ice caps would produce floods too. And there weren’t vehicles or coal plants to produce so much CO2 back when you think Adam and Eve “existed”.

This is a really tiresome line of argument against nuclear power. What about all the CO2 emissions created by the manufacturing and assembling of wind farms or solar energy installations? All of the very heavy wind energy components must first be manufactured from metals, plastics and other substances which themselves must be mined, refined and transported in multiple steps. Not only the equipment, but also the employees, managers, contractors, etc must all have transportation out to remote sites and back home each day.

So from a CO2 perspective, exactly how is the building of a nuclear plant all that different from the building of any number of renewable energy plants – or any other modern structure for that matter? It’s not that different. Therefore this becomes yet another in a long line of poorly thought out (and mostly emotional) objections to nuclear power.

Actually, the best form of nuclear power may be Liquid Flouride Thorium Reactors (LFTR’s) which can dramatically lower the risks of nuclear power, and which are much more efficient in using a Thorium/Uranium233 fuel cycle to produce energy (compared to use of a fuel cycle based on Uranium235/Plutonium, as found in existing nuclear plants). Also, Thorium is believed to be about 4 times more plentiful in the earth’s crust than is Uranium. Not only do Thorium LFTR plants produce just a small fraction of the nuclear waste produced by current plants, they can also consume much of our existing nuclear waste stockpiles by adding certain amounts of this waste directly into the liquid Thorium/Molten Salt core of an operating LFTR plant. In this way LFTR designs can actually consume the still substantial heat of nuclear waste to generate useful electrical power from this formerly unwanted and greatly feared by-product.

but with all the energy that the wind farm save later in life it is worth it. there is no perfect energy source yet and i doubt there will be for many years to come so we have to make due with what we have. And the other form you mention is WAY to expensive… if u want to pay that much be my guest.

That shouldn’t really be factored in as anything big enough to provide power to any descent chunk of the population will emit that much co2 in the construction. it has nothing to do with nuclear energy.

Not only will nuclear power not fully relieve the need for fossil fuels, it won’t relieve it AT ALL for very long. The amount of Uranium on the earth isn’t NEARLY enough to sustain us for long enough to relieve the need of fossil fuels, we’re talking no more than 80 years for the remaining Uranium to be mined and used. What do you think happens when the Uranium is used up? You guessed it! Right back to fossil fuels again. Nuclear power is not a solution. It’s a dangerous, potentially deadly, TEMPORARY fix.

Also, for your information…Wind and solar power is becoming more feasable every year. The efficiency of the wind and solar power plants are getting higher every year and could potentially be used to relieve our need for fossil fuels, at least more than nuclear power could. Geothermal energy is also usable as a reasonably permanent renewable resource. The plants are extremely expensive to make, but in time they will pay for themselves, since there are no known drawbacks of using geothermal energy yet.

You really should get your facts straight before posting something like that.

you need to think ahead rather than right now. do you realize how long 80 years is? look at how much technology has expanded in the last 30-40 years and imagine how much it will expand, especially in the field of energy where there is such high demand. nuclear energy cannot be seen as a permanent fix, but rather as a procrastination device while we develop better technology to use renewable energy resources. you are obviously too small minded to think that much. im not saying youre wrong im just saying youre stupid

Well, sure. 80 years is a long time for the CURRENT generation. But think two generations from now. The bottom line is that nuclear power is not a permanent fix and that it’s not a procrastination device. Yes, we might come up with other sources of energy, but then…that would just prove my point, which was that NUCLEAR ENERGY IS NOT A SOLUTION TO OUR DEPENDENCY ON FOSSIL FUELS. But obviously, you’re too small minded to see that. I’m not saying you’re wrong. I’m just saying you’re just as stupid as I am.

I believe that you both need to do more research before you start throwing out opinions and accusing each other of being stupid. Nuclear power is a very debatable source of energy. Having many pros, along with many cons. Your point of arguement is flawed though. According to my research, the amount of uranium on the earth, and the amount of uranium used in the reaction process would supply the United States with enough energy to run at its current rate for approximetly 2,000 years. That is an extremely long time, and in that amount of time, our technology could come so far as to not require fossil fuels or nuclear power plants. This could happen, or this could not, we will never know until the time comes. As we wait though, you should both do more research before you accuse others of being 'stupid' when you yourselves are the ones that are uneducated.

look he is not stupid but you are if yo think about it when you look at the disaster in japan or cherynobal you will see that if an accedent happens it could result in a lot of distruction and here in America we have so many nuclear reactors that if one melts down it could cause a chain reaction.

what was said by me earlyer gose for the both of you. and if you are woundering it was just JOHNATHON. and I agree with tim it will not last and for your information wind and solar energy feilds are moving up in technology

Nuclear energy is NOT a god source for power due to supply of Uranium, cost for the plants to run, high risks of danger, radiation problems, extreme radiation releases in the atmosphere during accidents and the long time that it takes waste to lose radioactivity

1. For how long will nuclear power be available? Present reactors that use only the U-235 in natural uranium are very likely good for some hundreds of years. Bernard Cohen has shown that with breeder reactors, we can have plenty of energy for some billions of year. Cohen's argument is based on using uranium from sea water. Other people have pointed out that there is more energy in the uranium impurity in coal than could come from burning the coal. There is also plenty of uranium in granite. None of these sources is likely to be used in the next thousand years, because there is plenty of much more cheaply extracted uranium in conventional uranium ores.

Food ARE YUUUUUUMMMMM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

…………i am almost dead from the intense stupidity radiating from you. first of all, the maintainence costs of a nuclear power plant is much much cheaper than that of a coal plant. a gram of uranium can give off, literally, 10,000,000 times more energy than a gram of coal can. that means a nuclear power plant will only need one boxcar of uranium a year while a coal plant will need 10,000,000 boxcars of coal. it is much cheaper to maintain a nuclear plant. secondly, in all of the time that the u.s has been using nuclear energy, there have been a total of 5 accidents. only 1 of them was a 5. (5/7, chernobyl was a 7 and the only 7 ever) most of them were minor leaks, the worst one was long island. a 5. not even that bad. did you know that 20% of americas energy is nuclear? probably not. point is accidents hardly ever occur. and nuclear power plants are much cheaper to run than coal plants.

Well lets look at total power output here. wind and solar range from kW to barely into Mega-Watts. Nuclear power is capable of guess what, here it comes, Giga-Watts (10^9). And you said efficiencies are getting better with wind and solar. well i hate to break it to you but it isn’t sunny enough every where or windy enough everywhere to reach full efficiency. Efficiency that doesn’t even come close to that of coal or nuclear. and its more like 100 years for the uranium fuel supply. And that would last longer if we reprocess the fuel. SO get your facts straight before you write something so moronic.

also don’t forget about fusion. Last i heard thats 20 to 30 years away from being perfected. well within the “80” years you claim.

There are newer generations of Nuclear powerplants such as the new and exciting generation 4 reactors which can reuse some of the wastes, this new plant will uranium consumption and therefore make it last longer.

There may be longer term issues with uranium supplies, especially with any large degree of growth in traditional nuclear plants. But as I suggested in my prior post to this thread, the real energy treasure is thorium, which has hardly been mined at all until now, and is believed to be at least 4 times more plentiful than uranium in the earth’s crust. There is also no need to tediously separate different forms of thorium (as with uranium 235/238). Nearly all thorium is 232 and ready to go as is. The efficiency of thorium is far beyond any other source, even uranium. A quantity of thorium smaller than the size of a ping pong ball can provide all the energy needed by an average American over an entire lifetime, including the electrical equivalent of a lifetime of gasoline/diesel transportation for that person. No other energy source is even close to this level of energy density. Also, nearly all thorium is used up in the fuel cycle of a Liquid Flouride Thorium Reactor (LFTR) which is the most promising plant design for using the massive thorium supplies in the USA – some already refined and stockpiled out west from the days of the Manhatten project, with even more still in the ground in well-known locations, and no doubt even more yet to be discovered. Besides producing relatively little nuclear waste of their own, Thorium-based LFTR reactors also provide the unique ability to safely “burn” most of our existing nuclear waste to produce electricity – turning a potentially major pollution problem into a cheap new energy resource! Furthermore, thorium plants present far less danger of diverting materials for making nuclear bombs – for one thing they produce far less plutonium than existing nuclear plants. And this is the very reason that thorium designs were passed over in the first place (many of the early nuclear experts were thorium advocates) – but the thorium designs don’t produce nearly enough plutonium to support the kind of aggressive nuclear bomb building program that the USA ran from 1945 until ~1990. But thankfully this requirement no longer exists like it did during the Cold War. And far from being a decisive advantage over thorium designs, plutonium production is now considered a major proliferation (and possibly terrorist) risk factor of existing Uranium/Plutonium nuclear reactors. There are some excellent websites on the potential of thorium energy. Try google and search on something as simple as “LFTR”. Or you could search on “thorium”.

Are you seriously saying that uranium will last that long? Because if you are you are seriously wrong. Uranium will at least last a few hundred years. There is no way in this entire universe that uranium will last that long on earth. Unless we find a way to generate nuclear power from air which is impossible. Are you just ignorant or did you just not even read the article? Solar power is better in every way but one which is how much electricity is produced. It is worth the cost.

Woah man too much RAGE!!! calm down… Nuclear Power isn’t that bad… there only has been a few recorded disasters. Plus it is one of the most efficient ways to produce electricity… Also the most harmful of all nuclear wastes can be turned into solid relatively harmless blocks stored deep inside the earth.

80 years is only an estimate. When you factor in improvements made to surveying techniques and the development of new technologies this number is expected to increase. Also, directly mining Uranium is not the only source we can use. There are a long list of secondary sources we can use such as nuclear stockpiles and dismantled war heads.

Nuclear energy is a practical solution to many of the problems posed by fossil fuels but of course it will not completely replace fossil fuels. There is no alternative energy source that will completely replace fossil fuels because they are the cheapest choice as of now; of course excluding environmental impact.

Fusion offers the potential for basically an inexhaustible source of energy. Although it is not expected to be ready for 50-100 years it holds the most promise for nuclear energy. It is a clean source of energy and would be cost effective. I strongly disagree that wind and solar have a higher chance at being able to meet our needs over nuclear energy. They just are not that effective on their own. If we want to stop using fossil fuels it will likely contain a nuclear component, along with wind and solar. Dicktard.

What a nuclear fusion? That can use deuterium particles for the ocean. 1/6500 particles in the ocean are deuterium, so we have a practically infinite source of energy when nuclear fusion energy is made to be able to produce energy on a large scale.

It's not the simple. Sure terrorists could try to hit a nuclear power plant with a plane, but it wouldn't do much. The reason the WTC buildings fell was due to fires, not the actual plane crashes. On the hand when one of the hijacked planes hit the pentagon all that happened was that you saw a small dome-shaped hole in the concrete wall. Put yourself in the shoes of a terrorist. First of all you would not be looking for any large towers or out of place pentagon shaped buildings. What you would most likely see would be a cooling tower. Feel free to crash into a cooling tower, it will not do much if anything. Where the nuclear reactor is actually stored would be in the containment dome which is a thick dome figured concrete compound, even if you were to hit it all you would see like with the pentagon example the plane exploding with the minimal damage to the actual concrete structure.

nuclear energy has so many more cons than pros because n reality unless you have a good enove cooling system the fision process is very unstable and just measing with uranium-235 can kill you and if that dose not explain it imagine puting a block of c4 in your mouth and ou body is a city then it explodes.

Solar is not available 24/7 but in the right areas, wind is there all the time all year round. And with solar the area under the panels can not be used but with wind you can use almost 100% of the area around it. You do that math.

too bad we’re on shitty terms with china which is the only country to find the key material in making a solar panel and you didn’t check your sources to find out what you said isn’t true you stupid fucking retarded bitch asshole

Thanks for this post! I really needed it to complete my project on the positives of nuclear energy. It helped a lot, BUT I need an author name. I have to cite this site in order to finished my annotated bibliography.

1. For how long will nuclear power be available? Present reactors that use only the U-235 in natural uranium are very likely good for some hundreds of years. Bernard Cohen has shown that with breeder reactors, we can have plenty of energy for some billions of year. Cohen's argument is based on using uranium from sea water. Other people have pointed out that there is more energy in the uranium impurity in coal than could come from burning the coal. There is also plenty of uranium in granite. None of these sources is likely to be used in the next thousand years, because there is plenty of much more cheaply extracted uranium in conventional uranium ores.

High risk? Terrorist attack? If any of you who say high risk is a factor coal power plants cause 28,000 deaths a year. Guess how many deaths have been caused by nuclear power total approximatively 3,000. And if you guys would wake up to relize there are no terrorists and that its just the government than you would have a much better understanding. Nuclear power is the most efficient, but do you think that multi billion dollar corporations will just allow the world to switch to nuclear power?! No!! The only 2 viable sources of energy are nuclear and geothermal. Every one is arguing about the dangers of nuclear power go research how many deaths have been caused by fossil fuel plants do it or your being very biased. BTW no one should be calling anyone else stupid opinions are what make the world go round :)

Everyone is entitled to their own oppinions. Relax if someone doesnt believe in yours, not everyone always will. I appreciated this site for having contained all the information that it does. It was very informative for me :)

Wow … I have never read so many comments by so many small minded people. In order for a single solar energy plant to be able to produce as much electricity as a nuclear plant it would have to be the size of half of Texas. Additionally, since the sun isn’t available for all 24 hours then the plant would not be operational for half a day at a time. Oh, and lets not bring into account overcast days. Wind energy you say? Ha! What a joke, it has roughly the same land requirement and even on the best of days your only going to get about 10 hours worth. Everyone wants an instant solution now to our problems. How about we take it a step at a time? We’ve done fossil, now it is almost depleted. Next step is nuclear as until something better evolves. BTW … solar power isn’t the final answer either since it will eventually burn out also. Nothing is permanent, everything is fleeting.

Shelly your calling everyone small minded, yet your not stating all the facts on solar energy. Solar energy and wind power will not eventually burn out, how can you make assumptions like that. We all know that the sun isn’t available 24 hours. Your right about it be operational for about a half a day. But do you realize that solar power and wind power, do not cause pollution. And by using wind and solar energy, we wont be relying on fossil fuels. I can’t understand why so many of you are for nuclear energy. It is far more dangerous and costly.

Sab if you have not realised yet solar and wind power will not be a suitable means of power in the future. The population of the world will increase therefore using more electricity. There are new better ideas for electricity, it may not be the nuclear power plants right now which use nuclear fission but future ideas involve the idea of nuclear fusion. It is significantly more efficient and safer and I believe it is the way to go.

Another CON on Nuclear is that it requires an extremely precious natural resource; WATER. Moreover, clean and Safe water will become even more precious as we face climate change. Insurance companies long ago refused to insure Nuclear Power plants, and that’s we the Taxpayers on the hook. All in All, the cons of nuclear power far out way any benefit.

People need to reduce their use of electricity and develop products, renewable energy sources and buildings that provide the most efficient use of energy and raw materials. Nuclear energy is at best a short term solution. Nuclear energy is not ‘green’ nor renewable energy. Everything from the mining of the uranium, to the manufacturing process, to the unaswered question of what to do with the toxic nuclear waste that lasts for centuries is questionable and alarming. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Redistribute…….. It can be done. The question is…..do we have folks insightful and intelligent enough to do it????

PROS * Lower carbon dioxide (and other greenhouse gases) released into theatmosphere in power generation.* Low operating costs (relatively).* Known, developed technology “ready” for market.* Large power-generating capacity able to meet industrial and city needs (as opposed to low-power technologies like solar that might meet only local, residential, or office needs but cannot generate power for heavy manufacturing).* Existing and future nuclear waste can be reduced through waste recycling and reprocessing, similar to Japan and the EU (at added cost). CONS * High construction costs due to complex radiation containment systems and procedures.* High subsidies needed for construction and operation, as well as loan guarantees.* Subsidies and investment could be spent on other solutions (such as renewable energy systems).* High-known risks in an accident.* Unknown risks.* Long construction time.* Target for terrorism (as are all centralized power generation sources).* Waivers are required to limit liability of companies in the event of an accident. (This means that either no one will be responsible for physical, environmental, or health damages in the case of an accident or leakage over time from waste storage, or that the government will ultimately have to cover the cost of any damages.)* Nuclear is a centralized power source requiring large infrastructure, investment, and coordination where decentralized sources (including solar and wind) can be more efficient, less costly, and more resilient.* Uranium sources are just as finite as other fuel sources, such as coal, natural gas, etc., and are expensive to mine, refine, and transport, and produce considerable environmental waste (including greenhouse gasses) during all of these processes.* The majority of known uranium around the world lies under land controlled by tribes or indigenous peoples who don’t support it being mined from the earth.* The legacy of environmental contamination and health costs for miners and mines has been catastrophic.* Waste lasts 200 – 500 thousand years.* There are no operating long-term waste storage sites in the U.S. One is in development, but its capacity is already oversubscribed. Yucca Mountain is in danger of contaminating ground water to a large water basin, affecting millions of people. It’s difficult, if not impossible, for the U.S. to impose its will on the state of Nevada (or other places) if they don’t want to host long-term storage of waste.* There are no operating “next generation” reactors, such as high-temperature breeder reactors and particle-beam activated reactors, that are reported to produce less waste and have reduced safety concerns. Even if these technologies were ready, they wouldn’t be deployable commercially for another two decades.* Shipping nuclear waste internationally poses an increased potential threat to interception to terrorism (though this has not happened yet with any of the waste shipped by other countries). Increasing the amount of waste shipped, particularly in less secure countries, is seen as a significant increase in risk to nuclear terrorism.

The author is obviously anti-nuclear and obviously favors renewable energy. In my opinion, this is a heavily biased article that I can punch so many holes in.

“Known developed technology ready for market.” It’s been ready for over 60 years. Get with the times.

“Subsidies and investment could be spent on other solutions (such as renewable energy systems).” Guess what? The vice versa can be said with renewable energy! The stuff could be spent on nuclear energy instead of renewable energy! Again, obvious opinionated article.

“High-known risks in an accident.” The risk of a meltdown, even a partial one, is extremely low. If you’ve ever researched the safety features that are included in a reactor, you would know how low the probability is. Sure we know about Chernobyl, Fukushima, TMI, but guess what? The extensive coverage of such accidents was distorted heavily by the mass media and distorted even further by the ignorant population that believed them. You would not believe how anti-nuclear the media is. Especially ABC.

“Target for terrorism (as are all centralized power generation sources).” This is blatantly false. Not only has a terrorist never attempted to blow up a nuclear power plant, there is, a) no evidence that a terrorist group is plotting to blow up one, and b) a terrorist would never attempt to do such a thing. The reasons are simple if you DO YOUR RESEARCH. Any car bomb wouldn’t work, as the several meters of concrete separating the reactor core from the outside world would protect it from such an explosion. It is also extremely difficult, even for experienced pilots, to fly an airplane, especially one as large as a 747, at a very low altitude (100-500 feet), and even more difficult to crash it into the reactor. This is not video games or Hollywood, this is real life.

“Uranium sources are just as finite as other fuel sources, such as coal, natural gas, etc., and are expensive to mine, refine, and transport, and produce considerable environmental waste (including greenhouse gasses) during all of these processes.” It is true that the uranium mining process produces greenhouse gas emissions, but then again, so does the process of creating renewable solar panels and wind turbines. It is DEFINITELY NOT TRUE that uranium is “just as” finite as dead plants. While coal, NG, and petroleum are bound to rise and decline, much of the uranium has not been mined and lots more have not been discovered. Uranium is expected to last for centuries before it is exhausted, and if we still don’t have commercialized fusion plants by the year 2300, then humanity might as well self-destruct.

“Waste lasts 200 – 500 thousand years.” The author obviously chose the isotope, Tc-99 that has a half-life that lasts the longest by far and stretches out the half-life. In fact, the isotope has a half-life of 211,000 years, so don’t try to stretch it out to 500,000 years. And by the 200,000 year mark, the danger has (likely much earlier) long passed due to the fact that radioactivity decreases with time. While the statement is true, it is highly misleading.

“There are no operating “next generation” reactors, such as high-temperature breeder reactors and particle-beam activated reactors, that are reported to produce less waste and have reduced safety concerns. Even if these technologies were ready, they wouldn’t be deployable commercially for another two decades.” It isn’t a con that a next-gen technology isn’t ready to deploy yet. Likewise, it isn’t a con that Toyota is researching an all-EV car, but is still in the development phase.

“Shipping nuclear waste internationally poses an increased potential threat to interception to terrorism (though this has not happened yet with any of the waste shipped by other countries). Increasing the amount of waste shipped, particularly in less secure countries, is seen as a significant increase in risk to nuclear terrorism.” What is the goal of terrorists? To cause terror, and ultimately bring down civilization. What can a terrorist do with nuclear waste that cannot be used in nuclear weapons? Only Plutonium and Uranium are feasible in nuclear weapons, and uranium is not a waste product. Pu-239 is, but it has been shown that it can be used as nuclear fuel itself. It isn’t waste, it is unused fuel.

While any energy source has its risks, including nuclear energy and renewable energy, the person who created this article obviously needs to go do some more research on nuclear reactors, especially the safety features. Now, I’m not arguing for nuclear energy in this comment, but I am defending nuclear energy against blatantly false and misleading attacks that anti-nuclear groups, especially the ignorant Greenpeace, tend to use.

But instead the cons listed here are vage and fuzzy like “has been catastrophic” hence more emotional than factual or simply wrong. Trouble is it has a good deal of pros, some not even listed here, like nuclear has saved 1.8 mio lives by air pollution prevented. So why dont you face reality? Are you one of the “I dont like gravity” kind of guys?

Most of the cons are nonsense. If the USA would go nuclear it would have to build thousands of nuclear power plants, how can you call that centralized? Known uranium resources that can produces uranium at low costs last 1 billion years, with breeding 100 billion years. The cons are just the standard greenpeace lies. It is important that people are educated about the current real risks, about the much improved safety of new generation NPPs. People need to know that the mercury in energy saving light bulbs harms people more than the radiation in Fukushima. “High risks” “Unknown risks” What kind of arguments are these? Vague and fuzzy emotional arguments? Can you quantify them? Like Chernobyl had 50 deaths. Of course that is a high risk, but if you put that in relation to the energy produced you find all of a sudden, that nuclear is by far the safest and cleanest of all known energy forms, that solar and wind have 10 or 100 times higher risks of killing someone and more pollution. Hydro and liquefied gas are the greatest killers, even before coal, but do environmentalists care? No. And that even though Hydro and biomass energy destroys the most nature of all. It is a real pity people know so little about energy. People dont know that in the production of PV nitrous trifluoride is released, which is a 17,200 times stronger greenhouse gas than CO2, thus completely defeating PV. People dont know that radioactive tailings are produced in the production process of neodynium for windmills, and that neodynium is therefore no longer produced in the USA. People dont know that coal plants blow out and release radon, thorium and uranium in large quantities, About 800.000 tonnes uranium globally and 2 mio tonnes thorium.

“High construction costs”, “high subsidies” Unquantified. Nuclear is much cheaper than wind or PV and for wind and solar greens always argue, yes the costs high, but we have to bear them for the sake of the environment. And costs are only so high, because safety standards have been forced to absurd levels by greens. Wind and PV could never reach the zero death requirement that nuclear has to fulfill.

“Money could be spent on other energies” Why would anyone in his right mind want to spend money on something else where he would either get less energy, prevent less CO2, cause more deaths and more pollution? Yes, you can always do something else, but this is not an argument, at least not a rational argument.

“Long construction time” Mainly caused by opponents that go to court and have forced security standards to absurd levels. If we reduced safety standards to those applied to wind and PV, a nuclear power plant could easily be build in the same time needed to build a conventional coal or gas plant. Micro NPPs like the Toshiba 4S could even be mass produced on an assembly line like cars.

“Target for terrorism” That also applies to other things like hydro, but modern micro plants can be underground so that even an airplane crash would not harm the reactor.

Nonsense, nonsense nonsense. “The majority of uranium lies under tribal land” No the majority of known uranium is in the oceans. And even on land this is nonsense. Who makes up all this?

“Waste lasts 200 – 500 thousand years.”, “There are no operating long-term waste storage sites” Greens always want to recycle everything, just for nuclear they prevent recycling? Why? Because they know that if you recycle fuel rods, you dont have a waste problem and they lose an argument against nuclear.

“There are no operating “next generation” reactors, such as high-temperature breeder reactors” False, the Germans build one, that never went into operation, because the criminal environmentalists prevented it, but the chinese have build a licenced copy in Beijing. The even did the “chernobyl experiment” they ran it to full power and turned off all safety and cooling systems and watched what happened. As designed by the german engineers, temperature rose over a couple of days and then the system stabilized 1000degrees celsius below where any structural damage could occur. So of course the first jets had construction mistakes and crashed, but we learned and build better jets. We know what the errors in the construction of Chernobyl and the 1950s design in Fukushima are. These things are preventable, once you know more. And we do know more now.

“There are no operating “next generation” reactors, such as high-temperature breeder reactors” Yes, what are they going to do? Take the large castors and load them on a small rowboat? Open the castors and die of radiation? This is something completely unrealistic, something for a Hollywood catastrophe movie. It is much simpler to get the stuff elsewhere.

So all this is bunk. But what is good and reaffirming, is that we are now finally entering the nuclear age. Not the USA, but humanity. China, South Korea, Brasil, Russia, India are all active. In the end America will even buy NPPs from China. They have brought costs down and are now enetering the export phase. Good that greenpeace has no influence there to prevent the cleanest and safest energy of all.

Nuclear Energy is fairly clean for years but after it becomes Nuclear Waste which results as a huge harm and damage to Earth for… Forever. Has anyone ever thought of how to handle it when it gets very bad? What will we do? Yes, there are advantages but most importantly, the disadvantages… What will it do to Earth? We have to keep in thought that our future DOES count. There must be better ways than that.

Shut up Obama we will probably all perish in five days lol not really but nuclear energy is not all safe because it produces nuclear waste that can kill organisms slowly and painfully so Obama do you think that is safe? Do you?

Alright, let me end the comments argument for you chucklenuts since you can’t seem come to a conclusion by showing the pros and cons of the most oft mentioned here in the comments.

Coal and Oil: Fucking awful in the worst ways imaginable. They pose security, environmental and health risks at every step in their operation. They’re cheap, but that won’t matter when people are calling to ask why coal ash is in the river. Less than a century of oil left, about 4 centuries of coal.

Geothermal: This would be ideal, but it only works in places with a lot of tectonic activity, like Hawaii and Iceland. Otherwise is hard to beat.

Wind/Solar: Expensive as hell and don’t generate alot of power, but definitely have their niche uses. Solar can lower demand spikes by producing the most power on the days when the most power is used (hot, sunny days when people run the AC). Like geothermal, it depends alot on the area.

Nuclear: The crowning mother of expenses, nuclear is the blunt force of power generation for things like super-heavy industrial use or large cities. It’s quite dangerous, but thanks to obviousness of the danger, precautions are taken. In pure numbers, there have been more coal power accidents than nuclear.

Fusion: I’ll get back to you in twenty years. Depending on reactor design, there may not be enough Helium-3 fuel on earth to supply it.

I’d like to point out that so many people equate nuclear power plants with nuclear bombs. This is erroneous. Nuclear bombs are enriched to at least 90% while nuclear plants enrich uranium to about 3-5%. Also, some say that terrorists may target nuclear plants to cause widespread damage; however, in reality, during the cold war, neither Russia nor the US targeted one another’s nuclear facilities because they knew it would not amount to anything.

Nuclear Energy does not end with the Uranium Supply. Ever heard of Nuclear Fusion, it uses hydrogen…if we run out of hydrogen there are bigger problems then an energy crisis. However with the way we are burning fossil fuels we wont make it to a period in time where we have to worry about uranium running out.

We cannot be dependent of one source of energy. Going forward, we need diversity, with multiple energy sources being CO2 free and efficient. Let’s not make the same mistake we did with oil. We cannot be dependent solely on nuclear, nor can we be solely dependent on wind and solar.